ling under the care of ministering angels,"--here
Wycherly glanced his eye at Mildred and her mother--"I less felt the
want of relatives. Sir Wycherly I honoured; but he too manifestly
regarded us Americans as inferiors, to leave any wish to tell him I was
his great-nephew."

"I fear we are not altogether free from this reproach, Sir Gervaise,"
observed Sir Reginald, thoughtfully. "We do appear to think there is
something in the air of this part of the island, that renders us better
than common. Nay, if a claim comes from _over water_, let it be what it
may, it strikes us as a foreign and inadmissible claim. The fate from
which even princes are not exempt, humbler men must certainly submit
to!"

"I can understand the feeling, and I think it honourable to the young
man. Admiral Bluewater, you and I have had occasion often to rebuke this
very spirit in our young officers; and you will agree with me when I say
that this gentleman has acted naturally, in acting as he has."

"I must corroborate what you say, Sir Gervaise," answered Bluewater;
"and, as one who has seen much of the colonies, and who is getting to be
an old man, I venture to predict that this very feeling, sooner or
later, will draw down upon England its own consequences, in the shape of
condign punishment."

"I don't go as far as that, Dick--I don't go as far as that. But it is
unwise and unsound, and we, who know both hemispheres, ought to set our
faces against it. We have already some gallant fellows from that quarter
of the world among us, and I hope to live to see more."

This, let it be remembered, was said before the Hallowells, and Coffins,
and Brentons of our own times, were enrolled in a service that has since
become foreign to that of the land of their birth; but it was prophetic
of their appearance, and of that of many other high names from the
colonies, in the lists of the British marine. Wycherly smiled proudly,
but he made no answer. All this time, Sir Reginald had been musing on
what had passed.

"It would seem, gentlemen," the latter now observed, "that, contrary to
our belief, there is an heir to the baronetcy, as well as to the estate
of Wychecombe; and all our regrets that the late incumbent did not live
to execute the will we had drawn at his request, have become useless.
Sir Wycherly Wychecombe, I congratulate you, on thus succeeding to the
honours and estates of your family; and, as a member of the last, I may
be permitted to congr